


Babe, We Ain't Kids No More

by Trixen



Category: Outlander (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 05:51:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14846997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixen/pseuds/Trixen
Summary: AU after the engagement announcement."They keep saying they'll stop..."





	1. Chapter 1

_Caitriona._

 

The hair falls into the sink like dark snakes, darker rivers, her eyes are diamond flint, and she cuts without much thought, just straight across, no faltering or hesitating. The trailer keeps getting buffeted by the winds, and she steadies herself by bracing her hips against the counter, locking her knees. 

 

 

It occurs to her that they may have to do re-shoots, or that she might get in trouble for this. She keeps cutting. Soon, she has a fringe that rests against her eyelashes. She snips a few more times. She's tempted to go the rest of the way, hack it all off, but that seems like it might be ...

 

what

 

Too much?

 

Something a teenager would do?

 

A crime?

 

Just a small one, but a crime nonetheless.

 

Caitriona puts down the scissors. She notices that she's cut herself; a line of red on the meaty part between her thumb and her palm. Near where the fortune teller put her sandpaper fingers on her skin and told her she'd love many, that she'd travel oceans, see horizons, that she'd be caught, a rabbit in a snare.  _He has his teeth in you_. 

 

But who is the wolf?

 

Last night, she lay very still in her bed, and the heat pressed in from all angles. Her sweat smelled like she imagined sweat was supposed to smell - pure, hurting salt, stinging and alive. She remembered a night long ago, with a ramble up a hill, the air bracing and awash with starlight. He balanced his iPod on a crumbling stone wall (not exactly Hadrian's, she'd joked and he touched her face, his eyes so very, very soft) and Elvis crooned to them, in their very own universe. He stared at her, his fingers fluttering - a silent question. 

 

_Take my hand, take my whole life too..._

 

And she had, she had taken his hand. He'd drawn her carefully toward him. Her breasts touched his chest. They moved together, slowly, and she hurt, wanting to sink her teeth into him, wanting him to sink into her. And yet, they did nothing but dance, to a song from long ago, with Scotland's moon watching from above.

 

"Five minutes, Cait!"

 

It's called from the doorway, along with a  _rap, rap, rap_ against the cheap wood. Voice-overs. It's one of her last calls to speak in Claire's voice before the season's done, and she can go, off to her hols, eventually to Australia, and burgers in baps on the beach, sand between her toes, sunshine, warm and wet and seabright air.

 

Her tummy contracts, and she tastes something sour in her mouth. There are breath mints next to her toothpaste and she pops one on her tongue, crunching until the bitterness is gone. She puts a smile on her face, practices it really - it's been so long since she cracked one of the big grins she's known for - but it's a reflex, like anything else. 

 

"Coming!" she calls, even though the person is long , long gone.

 

~

_Sam.  
_

 

They used to keep saying that they would stop. 

 

Now, it's Sam who says it for the both of them. It’s rare for Cait to talk to him now, let alone put a name on whatever  _this_ is, but he repeats it to her, to himself, to the diary he’s kept since he was a lad (he doesn’t tell anyone about  _that),_ he tells the therapist he goes to once but not twice, he tells the dog he meets in the best espresso place in town, he tells the trees, the sheep, the rainclouds and storm clouds and even the sunshine, as little as it actually appears.

 

But the words are cheap and bitter as bad whisky, and he ignores the fact that repeating them doesn’t seem to mean shite-all these days.

 

~

 

He found out from Twitter.

 

It took him a moment to really  _get_ it? He read what was in front of him, his thumb resting on the words, but he thought it was probably a joke or a journalist being an arsehole and so he almost texted her. Funny that. He wanted to  _warn_  her. 

 

_Some idiot says you’re engaged._

When he realized, it was a punch to the stomach, as sweet and pure as lightning would be. It knocked him out for a beat - two beats - three. His breaths felt strangled, strange and he closed his eyes. Never had he thought she was doing anything but saving face, playing her role, playing around. Until —

 

_oh, for fuck’s sake Heughan_

His thoughts are fits and starts. This is _forever_ , after all, what she’s promised, and it’s a damn lot more than she’s promised him. 

 

He remembers a lot of things.

 

A black dress at EIFF. 

 

Walks beneath stars and star shine and talking about astronomy, talking about pub food and gigs and favourite dates and worst sex ever and Galileo. The very idea of prophecy, of knowing the way the stars speak.

 

A black dress at EIFF.

 

Her mouth forming words, giggles, explosions of sound and laughter, and his helplessness in the face of it, in the face of someone finding him so very, very funny. Of finding someone so very, very funny. Of the way her laughs seemed to fill her belly, seemed to fill each and every hollow space between them and anyone else, they could build bridges, really, mountains and scale clifftops, those laughs. They were his every day.

 

She was his  _day_. Days. Months. Hours. Moments. He thought that people underestimated that. He certainly had. The idea of someone being your day. Seeing them with their hair ratty from sleep (she always got a knot toward the nape of her neck - a  _shagging knot_ the make-up girls called it, but Cait said it was from putting it in a ponytail and he wasn't sure who to believe but he knew who he  _wanted_ to believe _)_ and their palms steady around a polystyrene cup of coffee. Handing them a danish - gluten-free of course - or fetching an egg scramble and toast. The way her long legs would sometimes ache in the afternoons, as if she was still growing. The nonsensical conversations between takes, debating between prawn cocktail Walkers and some Irish crisp brand she was obsessed with - never know it to look at her, but that's models for you he's learned - and the way she'll hold her curls away from her face when she's too hot. The blooming sweat over her collarbones, the way it lies between them in that little hollow of her throat. Like a silver dollar, and he wants to put his mouth there, open his lips and taste her heart throbbing, drink those beats until he feels them in his cock, his stomach, down his legs and the small of his back. 

 

Seconds tottering upon seconds, stacks of them like kids’ toys and how was he to know how easily things like that broke? But then, shouldn’t he? Hadn’t he been a kid once, hadn’t he jumped into the river and smashed his elbow to bits, hadn’t he smashed everything to bits?

 

And Christ,

 

that black dress.

 

The feeling in his throat.

 

In his mouth. 

 

He can remember it, and he does, often.

 

Like now, when Twitter is saying she’s engaged to be married and he is thinking about the sound she makes when she comes, like a breath, but agonized, as if the orgasm was something being forced from her, something she wanted to keep. But she didn’t, she never did, 

 

she kept other things.

 

~

 

On the set, they're separated for long periods. When he gets the call sheets, he's always off chopping wood or pretending to shoot animals or scaling trees. Normally, he'd be chuffed to beans. He ends every day muddy and streaked with fake blood and some real blood, and he has a proper gash on one leg -- it even required a few stitches. But he's also always with other cast, and that seems fine on one hand but on the other, he feels sick and he wants to grab her wrist, yank her close, demand answers.

 

He wonders exactly what he wants to hear. 

 

Finally, one morning, with the mist rising off the ground from the lake and the smell of smoke in the air, he finds her alone. It's by accident - he wants coffee, and he's lost his wig (on purpose, maybe) - so there's a break in play. He decides to get something to drink and cuts through the back, by the woods, where it's quiet and he can hear ospreys calling to their young.

 

She's sat on a stump, a bit away from the make-up trailer, sipping something hot, a down jacket swaddling her in puffy layers that look like marshmallows. Sam watches for a spell, taking in the way her eyelashes curl over her cheeks. Her pale fingers, and the curl of steam ribboning from her drink. She's leaned into herself, as if for comfort. Just a moment of peace - he understands, and he still doesn't hesitate. 

 

"Cait."

 

She doesn't open her eyes, but her chin wrinkles. Just for a second, barely a cut in time, but he sees it. It's her tell. "Hello."

 

Her  _voice._ Like the fucking Royal family, her accent as thin and brittle as cut-glass. It’s the way she always speaks in California - or he shouldn't say  _always_  - it’s the way she’s spoken in California for ages, ever since she got it into her head that fame was something she felt like seeking. 

 

Ever since they both did, if he’s being entirely honest.

 

He'll be fucked if it crosses over to Scotland as well. That's not her, here. It's not  _them_ , here. Not what they've built, so carefully and for so long. 

 

“Oi, Hollywood,” he says snidely. "Quite a ring."

 

She takes a long breath and then finally those cream-white lids flutter open, finally he can see the blue beneath, like oceans under a skin of ice. Or as much that isn't covered by that messy fringe. He despises it. It’s so very ' _Caitriona before she became Cait’_ and it sticks in his throat that she felt the need to draw a line so deeply in the sand. 

 

“Thank you,” she answers demurely. “So you heard the news, then?”

 

“Balfe, there are tribes in the Amazon who heard the news.”

 

“That’s a bit rude.”

 

"Is it?" he chuckles. "Just the facts, love."

 

"It's not my fault that people found out--"

 

"Aye, I 'spose ye told no one."

 

She blinks. "Not very many. But there were people with us. It's not like I could hide it."

 

"I wouldn't say it's  _that_ big of a ring."

 

Her mouth curves, and he curses himself. It's such a petty comment, and it shows how fucking weak he is. How hurt. He should be off telling that to the sky or the bees, not this person. This stranger who used to be his best mate. His  _day_.

 

“I hate your hair,” he says, for the hell of it. Why not compound the problem. 

 

She straightens. “What?”

 

“I. Hate. Your. Hair.”

 

"And you just thought to tell me now? Well, thankfully I didn't cut it for you."

 

"Who did ye cut it for then? Certainly wasn't with a mirror in mind."

 

She laughs. "If you're trying to hurt me, you're doing a shit job of it. It was my own little rebellion. And I'm quite happy with it, thanks."

 

That was  _exactly_  what he was trying to do. She's always been able to see straight through him, fuck it all. "Why didn't you tell me, Cait?"

 

"I hardly need to consult you on hair decisions, Sam."

 

"Ye know perfectly well what I mean."

 

"Why should I have?" she says, and her lower lip trembles. Christ, he feels that all the way through him. He's not sure what he wants more - to put her over his knee or fuck her raw, but he knows one thing - he wants to bite that lip. He wants to bite that lip while he fucks her. 

 

Even now.

 

She must see it in his eyes, because she lowers her gaze. The coffee cup shakes. "I was going to text you. But there just never seemed like a good time to say it. I don't know, it was silly."

 

"We shouldn't talk here."

 

"We shouldn't talk anywhere."

 

He laughs at that. "Just going to avoid me for the next few years are ye?"

 

Her chin goes up. "I gave my notice."

 

"Excuse me?"

 

"I won't be returning after this season."

 

That sentence is so small, so tight, so perfectly contained. It falls between them like a bomb, and he steps backward instinctively. "What the..."

 

Caitriona nods. "I was going to tell you some other way-- I mean, not like this. But I won't be able to do the show any longer. I don't  _want_ to do the show anymore. It takes up so much time, and it's just... not with everything --" she pauses and then her hand touches her stomach. It's not something she means to do, he sees that, but it's enough.

 

Something happens to him then, as he realizes that it's over before it ever really begun, and he wants more than anything to turn, retrace his steps, back through the woods, through the set, treading water across the Atlantic, then back again, until he finds himself at EIFF, finds himself faced by the choice. He wants to make a different one. He wants to put his heart back into his chest. He wants to not have unzipped that dress. He wants to not have kissed her mouth.

 

He wants to not have felt her face against his neck during the audition. To not have touched her cheek, that hollow where she gets soft and tender and secret. He wants to not have heard the break in her voice. To not have fallen in love with her version of Claire - not the one he pictured, but one that he also could never have imagined, not in a million fever dreams.

 

Christ, to not have wondered, waited, told the birds about her. To not have coined 'Cait' or rubbed her feet or let Eddie climb her way onto his back or cleaned up spilled wine or raced to tell news or texted into the wee hours or felt the fall of her hair around his face, enclosing him in darkness that smelled of sandalwood and sweat and Irish girls who mean no good. 

 

She sees that he knows and for a moment, they are Sam and Cait, just as they've always been, and everything passes between them, the years upon years. Her fingers are questing, fluttering a bit - a silent question, and his ache to answer, but she turns away before one of them takes a step, because as he understands, it's over, it's over, and if they touch each other, it might not be.

 

~

 

That night, he goes for a walk. He tells the mountains that they're through. They've stopped, truly this time, the most forever of all forevers, because forever belongs to someone else. 

 

He tells them that the salt he tastes is from the wind coming off the sea. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Three years later.  
**

_Caitriona._

 

Caitriona stands by the window, watching the sun fall through the clouds, like a blood-orange releasing itself from its tree. Slowly, carefully, becoming disassembled from the sky. It's peaceful, watching the migration - allowing her to ignore the bustle around her in the hotel room. Hands in her hair, pinning, twisting, the hot tongs of the curling iron. Sponges swiping make-up, dabbing and fussing, as if her face is a canvas. In her mind, she's the one outside the thin-skinned pane of glass, balanced above a waning London afternoon, like Peter Pan or the Darling children. Wind in her hair, the smell of gardens and flowers, of chicken tikka masala and fish, of deep, dark red wine.

 

She closes her eyes obediently as Madeleine goes to work with ink-black liner. All too quickly, she slips into a memory. A night like this, from what seems so long ago. The Edinburgh International Film Festival. She'd been going to a premiere, and she can recall getting ready much like this, except with almost no help, and no expectations. It had felt like a night out, a lark really, and she remembers standing in front of the mirror, slim-hipped and fresh-faced. The black dress like a second body, and Tony kissing the back of her head.

 

"Smashing," he said. She had smiled at him, at his reflection. What he had looked like then is fuzzy, blurring at the edges. 

 

What had happened later is not.

 

"We need to get your kit on," David says, his voice a bit loud in her ear, jarring Caitriona from the past. She snaps to attention though, as she's wont to do these days. Always on, always ready.

 

"Put it on then, I'm set."

 

David steps back, scanning her with a critical eye. She's used to it, and lets him. He looks over the delicate, ivory-lace lingerie - the demi-cup bra and silk underwear, the garters holding up her whisper thin stockings. She doesn't need shapewear. Her waist is narrower than it was when she was a teen in Tydavnet. One of the tabloids said she was a touch too thin. Rich, coming from a rag that bleated about cellulite on a daily basis. Caitriona had ignored it. What else could she do?

 

Eating has lost most of its luster.

 

"Perfect," David says, kissing his fingers. "You're going to look like such a snack tonight."

 

"Even I know that isn't the slang these days," she answers. 

 

Madeleine snorts. "David needs a kid so he can keep up."

 

"What fresh hell is this?" he immediately replies. "Don't even suggest it. Also, Mads, since you're apparently not busy, bring the dress would you."

 

"Ohmigod," she mutters, heading over to the closet, where it's hung on the door to release any wrinkles. "Stop being so bloody sensitive."

 

"Stop hurting my feelings."

 

"Like you have any."

 

"Ouch," he chuckles. "Ohhh nelly, that is so  _gorgeous."_

"It's..."

 

"MAJOR," he finishes for Caitriona. "Okay, let's figure out how to get this on you."

 

Ten minutes later, she's in, and the mirror tells its own story. David was right - it's an  _event_. Gun-metal grey, the dress evokes a warrior princess from a bygone age. Made of a shimmery material that resembles chain-mail, it falls to the floor in folds of starlight. High-necked, it has a long, draping cape in the back that trails behind her, and a wide belt that cinches shut like a moat circling a tower. Her hair - repaired after so many years of torture on  _Outlander_  - reaches to the middle of her back in a torrent of waves. Madeleine has drawn pieces back from her face, winding them into a complex braid shot through with silver rope. 

 

She wears no jewelry - the dress speaks for itself.

 

"You're her again," David says with a little sound of pleasure. "Christ I'm good."

 

"Joan of Arc didn't flounce around in ballgowns, Dafydd," she says, mimicking his Welsh accent with perfect accuracy. He scowls at her and she can't help but giggle. "Okay okay, calm your tits. I agree, it's  _exquisite._ "

 

She practices walking. Easy peasy, thank goodness. The dress, despite looking cumbersome, is light as a feather, and she hears both of her style-team gasp with awe as the cape billows behind her. She looks back at them and David holds up his phone.

 

"That's the money shot," he says, going to work on Instagram. "GodDAMN you clean up well, C."

 

She laughs, Madeleine finally hands her a vodka soda and she has a moment to look out the window again. Her city, spread before her, and somewhere out there, the premiere for the most buzzed about film of the year.  _Her_ film.  _Jeanne D'Arc._ A dystopian re-telling of Joan's story, with Caitriona in the title role. She'd played her as a broken alcoholic, forced into heroism by circumstances beyond her control. By any one's standards, it was the part of a lifetime, and she'd prepared for months upon months. Backbreaking, sweaty work - both mentally and physically.

 

It had paid off. The early reviews had stunned even her, and the Oscar buzz had begun in earnest. It's bewildering if she's honest, and not entirely welcome - although she'd never admit that to anyone. After  _Outlander_ , she'd wanted to hide somewhere, curl into herself like a bear in its hibernating nook - find peace. Perhaps buy a little cottage somewhere in the Cotswolds. Grow out her fringe. Eat carbs. Build a garden and plant radishes, kale, waxy runner beans. She'd read once about how much gardening clears the mind. She supposes it has something to do with getting down into the muck and the soil, yanking out weeds and raking over old earth.

 

She still doesn't have her Cotswolds cottage. Instead, she has a flat in London and a flat in Los Angeles and what amounts to a villa in Tuscany, high in the mountains, where the grapes grow and the sunlight feels as old as dust. 

 

Madeleine hands her a purse and Caitriona forgets for a moment that she's not speaking to Lucie, her assistant (who had the sheer, unmitigated gall to come down with a tummy bug on the biggest day of Caitriona's career), saying, "So... bag check?"

 

She shrugs. "Eh...? I don't know."

 

"You don't?"

 

"Just kidding, Luce left full instructions. It's all there." Madeleine has a hideously cruel sense of humour, and her favourite thing is to wind Caitriona up until she's in a lather.  She winks and pokes at the bag, opening it so Caitriona can see. "Breath mints, wet wipes, your phone, lippy, twenty quid and your ID. She didn't say a compact but come on, you'll need it with all those lights so I threw that in-- oh, and some condoms."

 

"Condoms..."

 

"Yes, remember those? You put dicks in them."

 

Caitriona laughs. "I'm not  _that_  hard up--"

 

"You haven't been shagged in over a year."

 

She gawps at her stylist. "How the fuck did you know that?"

 

"David talks."

 

"I--"

 

"Just take them for Christ's sweet sake. It would help us all if you got well and truly seen to."

 

"And you think this premiere is the place for that?"

 

"After party, C," Madeleine says, as if her boss is a dolt. She might be, come to that. "There will be plenty of eligible lads there - or ladies, if you're interested."

 

Caitriona breathes in a bit, trying to control the urge to giggle. It will just encourage her. "Whichever, but I wouldn't need the rubbers then, would I?"

 

"Always be prepared. Not to mention, she might have a cock as big as yours."

  
David's re-packing Caitriona's suitcases as she has an early flight out - the 7am to Paris. But he pauses for a moment to snort-laugh, and the sound of his amusement carries across the room. There's nothing to do but join in. They're both incorrigible, but they're family - and that means a lot these days. A few laughs, a swig of her vodka, and she looks at the darkening sky, wondering if she's ready, if the night  _will_ hold any mystery men or women as Mads hopes. Wondering if she looks closely enough, will she see Neverland, glittering and waiting. 

 

She'd always loved that as a child. The idea of a pocket in the sky, another world, with mermaids and pirates and lost boys, holding its breath for her arrival.  _Second star to the right, and straight on till morning_. 

 

"Let's go," she says, wondering who she's speaking to - even now. Long ago, that knock on the door, telling her they were ready for her. And that person, disappearing into the Scottish wilds. 

 

Her, disappearing into the Scottish wilds.

 

"I'm ready," she says, to no one, to herself, to the city outside. 

 

~

 

_Sam_

He's signing an autograph when he sees her. The pen is shite, and it keeps blobbing at the end of every letter, so he doesn't really feel badly about smearing it everywhere when his hand moves. It's involuntary. He jerks as if electrocuted, and it's not from the shrieks of the crowd, or the clamouring photographers.

 

"Sorry love," he says to the fan. "Scribble down your address and I'll send you a signed one - your pen's shot, I think."

 

He stuffs the crumpled bit of paper into his pocket, and makes his way further down the red carpet. Leicester Square is sparkling with energy.  _Jeanne D'Arc_ is the hottest ticket in town, and of course, Sam hadn't exactly had to beg for tickets. His publicist had salivated at the chance - a pic of Sam and Caitriona together after two and a half years? It was a no-brainer. He suspects Cait's publicist was less thrilled, but she'd granted the request without comment. 

 

It's not as if he should be looking at her again - but not as if he  _shouldn't_ , right? So he braves another glance. And fuck if his belly doesn't cramp at just the way that her hair falls down her back, the loose waves like a river. Reminding him of her playing Claire, sliding over him, everything dark and sweet. He bites his lip until he tastes something like blood, and sees the cream-pale curve of her cheek, the silver dress, the way that when she waves, her rings glimmer in the dying afternoon.

 

It's not until during the film that he actually talks to her. He hadn't planned on watching it, but he's hooked from the moment she appears on screen.  Soon though, his publicist's texts about mingling and networking and bloody hobnobbing get out of control, and he switches his phone off, standing and making his way toward the private rooms. He's admitted without ID, which is a thing in of itself, and heads to the bar for a whisky. 

 

It burns as it goes down, and he swallows gratefully, feeling the rush of heat that is not unlike sex, not unlike that first flush of desire. 

 

"Hi stranger."

 

He smells her before he looks up.  Sandalwood and pine and something luscious - like fields of flowers. Her voice is a bit nervous, but when he meets her eyes, he sees nothing in them but the warmth she'd give an old acquaintance or friend. They air-kiss briefly, and his palm aches from touching her arm, even for a moment. 

 

"Hi Cait."

 

She shrugs, seeming to wince a bit. "My greeting was a bit melodramatic, wasn't it."

 

He laughs, unable to help himself. "Well, it had a touch of Hollywood about it, aye."

 

She leans her elbow on the bar. As usual, she makes him feel as if no one else is in the room. When her attention is on you, Sam's always thought, it's as if a door opens into another world. One in which you're floating on an island together, not another soul left, just infinite space, a golden ribbon between your bodies, connecting, pulling. He swallows, wanting to tear his gaze away but not able to summon the will. Christ, he's missed every inch of her.

 

He's hated every inch of her too.

 

"Cracking film," he says, nodding his glass in the air in congratulations. "Ye deserve every bit of this."

 

"This doesn't mean anything," she says, and she touches her stomach. Unconsciously, he thinks. It sends him hurtling back to that day in Scotland. The walk later, with the wilds and the mountains and the salt-air. 

 

"It means something."

 

"Not what I thought it would," Caitriona answers and then pauses, considering him. "How have you been? We really should have..."

 

"What?"

 

"Talked more. I should have rang you up. I'm sorry."

 

"It really doesn't matter."

 

She blinks and that expression -- it's how she looks when she's hurt. He feels like a git. And yet he doesn't, because she deserves this, and he deserves this too. The chance to hurt her like she hurt him. Because just  _looking_ at her makes him feel as if he's being turned inside out, slowly and carefully. He fancies she looks a little younger than she used to, but it might just be ditching the Willie Wonka hair, who can tell. She's still like white velvet, and he hasn't seen her huge smile yet, but he knows if he does, it will lay him bare. It was the first thing he'd noticed about her during the audition or rather afterward, when her nerves had vanished and she was resplendent with relief. He'd always said her legs during interviews, because to indicate otherwise would make him seem like a fucking twat. 

 

Christ, her smile, how it had quite literally burned him from the inside, and he reveled in that. How painful it was, to want someone so much, to be as in love as he had been.

 

"Do you want to..." she hesitates. "Shall we grab dinner after this? I have an early flight but maybe we could catch up..."

 

"Auld lang syne, eh?" he whispers, and then clears his throat, embarrassed. "That-- sure, I mean, why not? I came to say hello after all."

 

"I thought you came to be seen," she says lightly.

 

He nods. "That too."

 

"I love the show," she says, her voice quiet. "It's odd... seeing you as-- well."

 

"Not Jamie Fraser," he replies. "It s'okay, it's what everyone says after all."

 

"It's brilliant though. It's not-- I think it's because you embody it so well. It's jarring. I expected you to always be Jamie, and you're so...  _not_  Jamie in this."

 

He's pleased, despite himself.  _Get a goddamn grip, Heughan._ "Makes two of us, doesn't it? You're quite far from Claire here."

 

"You think?" she answers skeptically. "She was almost burned at the stake, Sam."

 

"Oh... aye, I forgot about that part."

 

Cait giggles then, and he cracks up too, and when their eyes meet, it's as if time has stopped, or wound backward. The timepiece moving in the opposite direction. Sending them back to another place, another epoch, when they'd laughed together in rain, sleet, sunshine, beside lochs and beside castles, the smell of horses and fields, with the taste of fake blood in the air or mouthfuls of wine at the pub. 

 

His voice is slightly hoarse now, but he ignores that, he ignores everything. To do otherwise would be madness, and he's only had one whisky. He's not quite there yet.

 

"I suspect ye have a lot to do before you can leave?" 

 

She inclines her head. "A bit. Pick a restaurant, would you?"

"Isn't this yer city now?" he realizes his accent is getting thicker, and he clocks her noticing it too. There's a faint flush winging out from her collarbones, peeking from beneath the silver chain-mail. 

 

"Might be," Cait says, shrugging. "But it's my night, and I don't fancy making decisions."

 

"Your night, hmm?"

 

"Yes," she says, and there's a challenge in her eyes, those blue mirrors, those blue devils.  "I get whatever I want."

 

He nods. He's on fire. "I'll see that ye do."


	3. Chapter 3

_Caitriona._

 

She changes in the loo after the mingling is over and done with. It involves a lot of banging her elbows against walls and the sink, twisting herself into contortions to reach zips and buttons, and finally, standing naked and shivering in front of a mirror that is an unforgiving as it is honest.

 

It’s horrendously cool in the bathroom, air conditioning blasting as if they’re in Los Angeles instead of London, and her nipples could cut glass. Her dress lies in a silver puddle at her feet, like a door to another world. A ghost walks over her grave - _Claire's grave_  - as she remembers her foot splashing in the water, stepping from the carriage, into the wild past. Finding Jamie, finding the girl Claire had been twenty years before. It frightens her briefly, the memory of so fully inhabiting another skin, so she steps forward a bit and looks at herself.

 

She knows she’d pass muster on the runway. Long-limbed girls sipping champagne would be jealous of her narrow waist, the shadows of her ribs, the slight tea-cup curve of her breasts. They’d coo over her coltish legs and the way her skin is moon-pale, the hungry smudges beneath her eyes. But all she can remember is the way Sam’s face went dark as midnight as he tugged aside that dress at EIFF. 

 

The way he'd yanked it up her legs until he reached her underwear. He’d ripped those off without even a breath, his palm cupping her pussy, hot and sure and so damned _confident_ that she had felt frantic, desperate, wanting his fingers inside of her, his cock inside of her, his tongue in her mouth.

 

She’d had all three.

 

Until she hurt with them.

 

Now, would he still want her the same way? She’s no longer that girl woman, that Claire, that Cait. 

 

_God, what does it matter, Balfe._

 

She pinches her cheeks to put some colour into them. Slicks on fresh lipstick and digs through the bag of clothes David handed her after she’d said hello to enough people that her team deemed her work complete. She hasn't told them where she's going. She has a feeling that they would text Lucie given half a chance, and the last thing she needs is her assistant yanking her back to reality.

 

In that way, she really is Claire - stepping into the abyss on a whim and a prayer. 

 

Perhaps it's just dinner, but the idea of spending any time alone with him feels akin to opening her heart and showing him the blood and muck beneath. 

 

As such, she needs armour - not the literal kind she'd wear as Joan perhaps, but an outfit that will speak for her when she loses her words. She tugs on black skinnies and flats. Over them she throws a sequinned t-shirt. It’s Christian Lacroix and so over-the-top glamorous that it gives the impression she doesn't care at all, which is precisely the point. She unwinds the silver rope from her hair and shakes it out until it falls in rivers of curls over her back. Remembers snipping her fringe in front of a mirror just like this one.

 

Unforgiving, honest, as tricky and inviting as Alice’s looking glass.

 

But she’s not as easily led, now.

 

Not as apt to pick up the scissors and gut herself, not so very _Cait_ about it all. 

 

She checks her phone briefly, and heads out, into the night.

 

~

 

He takes her to Isla Negra, and it’s not lost on her, the name of the restaurant. How could it be? Oh, the dim interior, like a cave carved from rocks centuries-old. The paintings on the dark walls are splashes of oceanic colour and vases hold careless bunches of flowers tied with twine. On the tables there are glittering wine glasses, fat pats of butter in ceramic dishes, guttering candles that spit and hiss. Sam is watching her closely, but not closely enough, and she feels uncomfortably aware of him. The breadth of his shoulders. The burnished gold curls at his nape. His beard is growing in a bit, and his cheeks are rough with it. Every glimpse of him is enough to make her remember, and remembering is a knot in her belly. 

 

“Been here?”

 

“No,” she admits ruefully. “How’d you know?”

 

“I didn’t,” he says, as they’re led to a corner table, down the back, where it’s warm with people and chatter and candlelight. The air smells of sizzling peppers, of salt and oak and peaches. She ensconces herself in the plushy chair, accepting a menu gratefully. She’s starving - first time in ages - and lets Sam order the wine.

 

“Well, good on you,” she says. "I thought I’d been everywhere.”

 

“Guess I can still show you some things.”

 

She goes a bit funny inside and ducks her head. “What’re you having?”

 

“Everything?”

 

After they’ve ordered, she smirks at him. “I see the Heughan appetite is still going strong.”

 

“About the only thing that is,” he says. “No cause to work out as much as I used to but I can’t seem to let go.”

 

“I would’ve thought you’d need to?”

 

Sam shrugs. “Not as much, no. I mean, the bloke is a detective - he’s supposed to have better things to do. Can ye believe they actually asked me to get _smaller_?”

 

“You still look revoltingly fit so obviously you didn’t listen.”

 

“Nah, couldn’t be arsed really. I need the stress relief.”

 

“Anchoring your own show proving to be a bit difficult, is it?” she asks sweetly. “I wouldn’t know a single thing about that.”

 

“Hey now, I had PLENTY of sympathy for ye back then.”

 

Caitriona considers, one finger on her lower lip. “I’m trying to remember any instances of this…”

 

He raises his glass. “To your bullshit, just as strong as ever.”

 

She giggles, raising her own. “Only matched by yours.  _Slainte_!”

 

When the food arrives, they dig in. It feels like old times - of course it does - and she eats like she hasn't eaten in years. Briny ceviche, so thick with lime and salt that it hurts her mouth. _Cadillo de congrio_ , with its bold broth, simmered creamy potatoes and bright tangle of cilantro, as heavenly as Pablo Neruda had always promised. And it's the thought of Neruda that makes her raise her head, ponder her wine, open her stupid mouth.

 

"Did you bring me here to make me remember?"

 

Sam swallows a bite of charcoal grilled chicken, his fork stilling in its effort to stab another piece from the plate that rests between them. He considers her, his eyes inscrutable, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. There's a little scar there, like he's bitten it one too many times.

 

"I didn't think I had to."

 

"No?"

 

"No."

 

She breathes out and sips the wine. "Perhaps not. But it's been a while, obviously."

 

"Your memory that bad is it?" he asks mildly.

 

"I didn't mean that."

 

"What did ye mean, then?" he answers. "You told me to take you somewhere. I did. I'm not trying to score points."

 

"You had to have known I'd--"

 

"What?"

 

She wants to say it. Wants to remind him of the way he'd leave her poetry beside her coffee in the mornings. The scraps of paper with his inky writing, as if he'd dashed off the words in haste, between bites of his breakfast, anxious to deliver the words to her. Right there in the make-up trailer, knowing full well that no one could decipher the threads of the language. _Te amo como se aman ciertas cosa oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma_. Loving her in secret. Neruda saying what he could not, what they could not.

 

Speaking the truth of their nights together, beneath sheets in hot darkness.

 

Caitriona wants to speak that truth now. When she opens her mouth, she wants everything to spill out, oceans and epochs and Scotland and the way she'd felt standing in front of the mirror earlier, wondering if he'd still find her beautiful, still find her irresistible. Or was it just a trick of light, of magic? She wanted to ask him why he had thought she had run to someone else, someone who wanted nothing more than to be with her; cared nothing for fame or glitz or Twitter likes or other women.

 

Someone who didn't run scared at the drop of a hat or the click of a camera.

 

But what would she be admitting if she asked that?

 

What door would she be opening? She thinks again of that pocket in the sky, Neverland, where Time stops, where mistakes can be unwound, where clocks can be unwound. 

 

So she drinks more wine, she takes another bite of her dinner, she doesn't open her stupid mouth. Cait would have done.

 

But Cait doesn't live here anymore, and that door stays closed. 

 

~

 

_Sam_  

 

"Did you bring me here to make me remember?"

 

The question makes him stop. As if a giant hand had come down from the ceiling and taken hold of his throat. He has trouble swallowing the chicken (which is damn delicious) and he wants to take a big drink of wine but then -- would she see how nervous he is? How the very _fact_ of her is making it so he can't concentrate, can't seem to stay pissed off, can't seem to do anything?

 

Fucking typical.

 

"I didn't think I had to," he lies, because why the hell else would he bring her here. Pablo Neruda had been  _their thing_  and it's not as if he minds rubbing her face in what might have been. It's not as if he minds a bit of punishment. If he can't fuck this out with her, at the very least he can make her see, can't he?

 

The trouble is, she's in a thin little t-shirt and tight jeans that show her ass and he's been hard since he saw her on the sidewalk outside the venue. Throbbing to the point where he's going mildly crazy. It's everything at once. The novelty of her. How worryingly thin she is, and how her eyes seem to reflect an ocean he cannot see, how she makes him laugh and teases him like a mate yet looks at him like she's hungry, like she wants to be fucked by him. 

 

Christ, if she does, what then?

 

Because he can't be that person anymore. He _won't_.

 

Her voice shakes slightly. "Perhaps not. But it's been a while, obviously."

 

"Your memory that bad, is it?" he asks, seeing red. But he stays blank, he stays  _nothing_ , because the alternative is anger, the alternative is showing her too much.

 

When she says she didn't mean it, he can't help himself, and he's arsey because she always has this power over him. "You told me to take ye somewhere. I did. I'm not trying to score points." Such a blatant fucking lie, and he deserves her to call him on it. But she doesn't, she doesn't do what he expects. 

 

"You had to have known I'd..."

 

"What?"

 

Worlds play behind the placid calm of her features. That face he knows as well as his own. He knows every freckle that she curses the appearance of, he's played connect-the-dots with them, his thumb tracing their constellations after long days in the woods, when she was wind-burnt and midge-bitten and  _done with this shit_. He could write sonnets about their inside jokes upon inside jokes, about how when she walked into a room - no matter how many were in it (thousands, hundreds, one other person), he could concentrate on nothing and no one else. He could write novels about the shades of her moods, her anxieties and nightmares and the way she touched his back when he was nervous (which was often) and how she _knew_ to touch his back in the first place, knew that one spot where her palm fit and he felt better, and it wasn't science, it was just Cait, just Sam and Cait, as simple and as goddamn complex as all that. 

 

The truth is that he knows every smile, every curve of her mouth - from the one she gives coffee, to the big grins she cracks at dirty jokes, her explosions of giggles, her myriad of Caitrionas, each one as familiar to him as a wife would be. 

 

Finally, she speaks. "Nothing. Just obviously Neruda has some history attached to it. I thought you might be dragging that up."

 

"Doesn't sound like something I'd do."

 

She laughs. "No? Perhaps that's just me projecting. You've clearly moved on and done a brilliant job of it."

 

"Eh, I reckon we've both done well. You're about to be nominated for an Academy Award after all."

 

"That has nothing to do with my personal life," she says without inflection, eating a bite of an empanada. She dips the other half of it into the bright, zingy chimichurri and shrugs ruefully. "Why is this fried shit always the best?"

 

Sam chuckles and snags the last one. "You're what we'd call a wee slip of a thing back home. I doubt it'll hurt."

 

"They wanted me thin for Joan," Caitriona says. "A bit addled, I think. Maybe I took it too far, but it seemed important at the time to get it right. I've wanted to prove-- well, that leaving Outlander was the right thing to do."

 

"And was it?"

 

"No, I don't think it was. Not-- not for the reasons I left anyway."

 

"How is he?" he bites off the words. He hates that he does, but he can't even think his name without choking on it, like a mouthful of cigarette smoke. 

 

She looks directly at him then. "He's well, thank you. How's--"

 

"Very well."

 

"Good," she whispers.

 

Her eyes close slightly, heavy-lidded, and Sam watches her, watches the wife he had for five years - not on paper, but in everything else, God, she was  _more_  - and he sees the candlelight chase shadows across her face, blocks of sunshine and dark. 


	4. Chapter 4

_Sam_

 

He feels pleasantly warm as they leave the restaurant. She’s in front of him and his hand is on her back, at the dip there, where she curves downward - and he can’t help but remember his palms on either side of her waist. He can’t help but remember holding her up on her knees.

 

His mouth tastes of wine and salt, and his eyes are full of her, of new memories he’s made. This new Caitriona, one he's just discovering. Her hair curling around her face, dark and sweet as a river at night. Her eyes going soft and her cheeks flushing with drink, of the little bumps at her shoulders from her collarbones, and her tits in that t-shirt, that fucking  _tiny_  t-shirt.

 

It seems almost funny to think that he’s going to treasure these new thoughts, new glimpses. There’d been a time when he saw her every day, for hours on end. Trekking through fields of grass and wheat, ducking beneath sodden umbrellas during rainstorms, crowding in tents and around craft service. Clutching mugs of burnt coffee and cursing the weather, cursing the sheep smell, cursing the bugs and the endless takes and the way she could. not. stop. giggling. He can clearly recall spending more time staring at his phone than at her. She had been somewhat of a fixture, and he cringes at the idea, but it's true, and there’s no use pretending otherwise. 

 

Just because he’s smarter now, just because he’s spent years wondering if he’s going to forget the specific way she says his name. 

 

That lilt. That thing he’d thought of as her  _Sam voice_  because damn it, it was different and she'd sounded — what? Affectionate? Exasperated? Loving? All three at once sometimes and as much as he took it for granted, it made his stomach hurt when it was gone.

 

When she gave that voice to someone else.

 

“Where shall we head now?” she asks, as they spill into the busy London evening. 

 

“Oh, aye? Thought ye had an early flight?”

 

“I’ve got time,” she says, hugging herself briefly in the chilled air. She smiles, and he has such intense deja-vu that he’s almost sick with it, remembering walking with her in Hyde Park before the chaos started, before everything started, and she had been cold - shivering and laughing, saying her lips were turning blue. He remembers holding her snug against his side for a selfie, and thinking how delicate it all was, how delicate this thin-skinned relationship, just beginning. And yet, it was as if he’d always known her.

 

The two ideas juddered around them that afternoon, making everything seem so much more than it was. Just the sight of her sipping coffee from a polystyrene cup, the pink tips of her ears, the way she’d wriggled and stretched, the blue devil of her eyes, beckoning him. He would have followed her anywhere.

 

Will he now?

 

“A walk, I think.”

 

She smiles again. “Suits me, Heughan. But I don’t want to keep you…”

 

“I’ve got nowhere else to be,” he says lightly. “I’m in town just for the premiere. So.”

 

“Me as well.”

 

“Makes sense, given it’s your film.”

 

She giggles. “Bastard, you know I can’t think straight when I’ve had wine.”

 

He laughs too, steadying her as they traverse the sidewalks, ambling, no set point in mind. London smells perfectly of soot and frost, of lush roses and underneath it all, the teeming hordes of people, their perfumes and sweat and their days - the curry they ate in a packet before leaving for a night out, the ink on their fingertips, their tears from a nasty break-up and the walk they’d taken after work, with the wind and leaves and ashy air. Sam wonders sometimes if it’s being an actor that makes him welcome everything in, or if he’s still the boy he was, imagining different worlds, different families, futures.

 

Someone is playing Dave Matthews from their flat window, and he catches a few lines, wafting through the air like ghosts.  _You said always and forever, now I believed you baby_. His palm touches her elbow, and her skin is so very soft, and he feels the gossamer hairs on the back of her arm, the goosebumps and that one mole that he’s always wanted her to get checked out (she never has - not that he would know now). The song follows them. _It’s all right, is what you told me. Because what we had was so beautiful_. And he swallows hard, trying to get past the lump in his throat.

 

“How was it?” he finally asks. “Being on a film this big.”

 

She looks back at him, slowing so they walk side-by-side. It forces him to drop his hand.

 

“Honestly? Bloody boring. It’s all green screens. Made me miss the midges, even. I thought I’d be out at muddy castles and getting strapped onto the stake or something — and it was just… studios.”

 

“Couldn’t tell.”

 

“That’s the worst of it. If you could, maybe they’d have to go on location more often. I don’t know, it just didn’t feel like the show did. It was such a…  _business_. Oh Christ, I sound daft don’t I? But it was exactly what it felt like. So very..."

 

“Hollywood?”

 

She snaps her fingers. “YES and I just — I wanted to get in the muck. Maybe that’s the only way I feel like an actress.”

 

“Well it’s not— I mean, ye started out doing that so I think that’s where you’re going to feel most at home.”

 

“I’m probably doomed to be trash at everything if it’s not based in Scotland.”

 

He chuckles. “You’re going to be nominated for an Oscar. You're doing just fine.”

 

Caitriona blushes faintly. He doesn’t think anyone else would notice but he does. She shakes her head and her hair falls around her face, like armour, rushing with the breezes surrounding them. When she speaks, her voice is tremulous.

 

“I don’t think it matters, you know? I’d give that up for just a bit of the magic we had.”

 

“Would you?” 

 

“Yes, why?”

 

Sam shrugs. “Just that ye gave it up rather easily.”

 

She turns. “So you’re still pissed off, then.”

 

“No,” he answers truthfully. “I’m not.”

 

“What are you?”

 

“I think… unsympathetic is a better word.”

 

She winces. “I deserve that.”

 

“It’s not a matter of deserving anything.”

 

“Yes it is.”

 

Sam wants to get angry. He can feel it fighting through the wine haze. But he resists, trying to remember what he’s sworn - that he will not give her the satisfaction. Not again. So he keeps his tone measured. He keeps it all on a certain level.

 

“If you want to punish yourself, go ahead.” He pauses, and looks at her, the curve of her cheek. The wet of her mouth. “But I’m not about to be in a strop about something that happened three years ago. I was furious with ye for a good while, but you did what you had to do. You did what was best. I get that now, I really do. At the same time, I’m not going to play the violin while you get upset about it - 'was a decision you made and I think you’ve got to live with it.”

 

“I do,” she says, shaken. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even— I think I’m just nostalgic tonight. Seeing you after so long— on such a big night. It’s thrown me for a proper loop.”

 

Sam nods. “I guess I— well, I  _did_  surprise you. I wanted to.”

 

“You did a good job of it.”

 

“It was an arsey thing to do, really. I mean— you shocked me back then. I guess I wanted to shock you right back.”

 

“And then what?” she asks quietly.

 

“Didn’t really think past that.”

 

Cait laughs, from deep in her belly. “That’s my Sam, always charging ahead. Heedless of the consequences.”

 

He ignores the ‘my’ because she’s tipsy and she doesn’t quite mean it, doesn’t quite know what she’s saying. They’re nearing Kensington and he thinks it might be a good idea to get inside, get into to a pub or something, as she’s pale and cold and beautiful, and he needs darkness, he needs somewhere he can’t feel her beside him. He flexes his hands, wishes he could go for a run, or a hike or throw something heavy at a wall.

 

“I need more wine,” she says.

 

“Read my mind, babe.”

 

“Where to?”

 

“There’s a pub ‘round the corner, I think. Been to a few gigs there.”

 

“Lead the way, soldier.”

 

He winces. There’s a place inside of him. Where she’s lived since he met her. All the Caitrionas. Cait.  _Claire_. How sometimes they had seemed joined, how sometimes they couldn’t seem any more separate, and yet they all existed there - in the hot red of his heart, and he wants to smash something more than ever, wants to yank her into his arms, wants and wants and wants.

 

As he’s done for ages, he ignores it and quirks a finger in her direction. 

 

 “Follow me."

 

~

 

_Caitriona._

 

What was that line of Claire’s? 

 

Something about Jamie being a horse, and how she’d ride him anywhere? Or was it let him ride her… Caitriona can’t remember, but either way, it’s apt, and she watches him as he walks ahead. The cobblestones are packed with people. No one’s noticed them, or cared either way - it's one thing she loves about this city, and the other is how he looks against it. 

 

It’s no big secret that he’s hot, and yet it’s as if she’s been denying that fact since they met. Publicly at least. Trying to pretend it means nothing or she’s unaffected and ha ha, all one big joke. Because he’s most decidedly not her type and against those thin, cigarette-smoking, dark-haired men, he’s like sunshine, and she feels slightly drunk with it - she had felt drunk with it back then, felt so stupid and transparent as she laughed about his looks, called him ‘easy on the eyes’ or some shit like that.

 

When the reality was, well. That he  _hurt_  her. 

 

That she lay in bed at night and couldn’t actually breathe because she was so wet, so aching, her legs and her heart, her whole body seeming to throb with some unseen devil, and it was torture. It really was. 

 

To call him attractive was like calling a Van Gogh a really good painting, and even now, it’s the bloody same. He’s beside her, in front of her, wherever in her space, and there’s a pull in her lower belly, a hot knot there, insistent and heavy and insurmountable. The first time he kissed her, she had felt like she was dying. 

 

“Over here, Balfe—“

 

Caitriona starts, lost in her fever of her own mind. He’s waving to her from across the way, at the mouth of an alley. There’s a crowd outside the pub which usually means it’s not half-bad, and she takes him in, the burnt gold of his hair, his wide smile, shoulders, flat belly. 

 

“Coming,” she calls softly, and she sees from his face that he can’t hear her. It's for the best. He would know what she’s thinking from her voice.

 

He would know everything.

 

~

 

The pub is packed, and there are roadies on the stage getting ready for something or someone. It had cost them each forty quid for the privilege of entering - at first they’d been denied but then one of the bouncers admitted to liking  _Outlander_ (although from the furtive way he’d said it, she gathered it was something to be ashamed of) and so now here they are. Sam finds them a corner table and they squish in, two bottles of Italian red between them (the bar was so packed that Caitriona had deemed it sensible forward planning) and thin-stemmed glasses that seem out of place in such a rowdy establishment. 

 

She says this aloud to Sam, and then cringes. “A rowdy  _establishment_. As if I needed any more proof I’m as old as the hills.”

 

“Are those wrinkles I see…”

 

“I  _will_  thump you.”

 

He chuckles. “Ye look younger than most. Especially with your hair grown again.”

 

She’s not sure whether to be offended but is erring on the side of  _yes_. “What was wrong with the fringe?”

 

“Didn’t suit you,” he says with a shrug. “And ye know it didn’t so don’t give me that look. I reckon you just did it to be rebellious.”

 

"Well, I just— I guess I wanted a reaction. I didn’t want— I didn’t want to look like  _Claire_ any more.”

 

“What was wrong with Claire?” he asks softly. “She’s about as perfect as a character gets.”

 

“It wasn’t her exactly… it was everything to do with the show.” She can’t say what she truly means. That it was about destruction. Once she knew she was pregnant, it had been like a knife sliced through her life, and some things fell one way and others off another ledge, and she needed to— act out. She needed to have a tantrum. “I just couldn’t stand being known as one person.”

 

“Ah,” he says, clearly not believing her but not pressing either. “So, why don’t ye wear your ring? Are you still engaged?”

 

She feels winded suddenly and stares at him. “Nice segue-way, Heughan."

 

“Thought it was better just to come out with it."

 

“Well then, no, I'm not.”

 

He nods briefly, swallowing more wine. “Thought as much. But it didn’t make the papers.”

 

“I didn’t announce it. You can hide anything… I mean, you know that. But I didn’t want any gossip about it. It truly was amicable, as boring as that sounds.”

 

“That  _is_  boring,” he says, dodging the punch she sends toward his shoulder. “Seriously, I’m sorry. Not what ye wanted, I’m sure.”

 

Caitriona takes a long drink from her own glass. The wine is sweet-tart and glows in her mouth, on her tongue. It tastes like she remembers Italy tasted. That good, hot feeling in her bones. She wants to drown in those memories, she wants to forget that they’re having this conversation. She didn’t know it was one she would ever have. And so she doesn't know how to answer him. Doesn't know how far to go with this strange new honesty. 

 

“It was necessary. He’s such a good man, but — it wasn’t going to work with us.”

 

“Now  _that_  sounded like a press release.”

 

“Doesn’t everything? I’m not exactly going to go straight for the blood and guts.”

 

“Why not? It’s me.”

 

“That’s precisely why.”

 

“You think I’m still hung up on you or something?’

 

She bites her lip. “No. I know you’re not.”

 

“How do ye know that?”

 

“Well, for one thing, that pretty girlfriend of yours.”

 

Sam turns a shade of purple rarely seen in nature, and for a moment, Caitriona is blissfully happy. He all but splutters his response.

 

“I do  _not_ have a girlfriend. _”_

“You really expect me to believe you’re not shagging her?”

 

“Oi well… I mean, shagging’s a different thing altogether.”

 

She half-laughs, half-groans. “Why are men the same no matter where you go?”

 

Sam fights to be heard over the increasing noise of the music and crowd. “Ye know as well as I do that it’s just a byproduct of working those long hours together. I don’t… I mean, it’s not  _serious_ with Ellie. She’s a good mate.”

 

“A mate you fuck regularly.”

 

“Aye, I do. Did ye expect me to remain alone forever?” his mouth twists. “I dinna think even  _you’re_  that selfish.”

 

Caitriona stares at him mutely for a second. She fights the urge to leave him where he is, atop a hill of his own self-righteousness. “When did you become such a twat?"

 

He sighs. “I was just— Christ, it’s awkward talking about this with you. I’m being a shite, sorry.”

 

“You were the one who said we should—“

 

“Seems like a mistake now. I can’t help but feel it’s years ago, and I’m being completely wrecked at the sight of you.”

 

_That_ she feels all the way through her. They stare at each other over the table, the wine, the flickering lights above. That old heat rises between them, and he licks his lips, like he used to do before kissing her. Someone taps on a microphone and then a voice, velvety and tough - both at once, like rust and starlight - resounds over the loudspeakers.

 

“I’m Ray. I hope you enjoy tonight.”

 

With the first strums of the guitar, Caitriona is transported. Back to her cramped trailer in the backwoods. Sam putting Ray LaMontagne on his iPhone. Twirling her in the kitchen as she cooked rigatoni in salted water. They’d fed it to each other later, pasta with fat cloves of roasted garlic, golden ribbons of olive oil, fried pancetta. He’d bitten her lip, said he wanted to eat her, said he wanted to fuck her until she forgot who she was.

 

And he had.

 

Now, the same song is playing - and Ray is  _here_ , singing to them, singing only to them, and it’s as if she’s caught in Time, her heart kicking, fighting --

_I just think if we keep our hearts together_

_Just think if we build on this trust that we have for one another_

_Baby we can make this last a lifetime_

_—_ and she looks at Sam, knowing he’s remembering the same. Remembering the taste of garlic and her in his mouth.

 

Scotland echoing around them, even now, even so many years later.

 

How haunted they both are.

 

She looks at him helplessly and sees all the decisions he wants to make - sees them on his face, the face she’d know anywhere, any time, after a thousand years apart — and then he stands, extends his hand.  He smiles that sunshine smile, and oh. How she had  _loved_  him, the weight of that exists like a ghost. 

 

His voice is quiet and he checks his watch. "How about a dance before your flight, Balfe?"

 

She stares at him, at his eyes. The hurt, the gut-deep feeling, the years behind them, between them, ahead of them. And she puts her hand in his, following him into the crowd. 


	5. Chapter 5

  _Caitriona._

 

Later, when she looks back, she can only remember that particular bit of the night in small pieces, like peering through slashes in a piece of fabric. His hot breath. Ray's voice, so velvet soft in the dark room. The jostling crowds. Smell of wine and salt and so many bodies in one spot. The reek of anticipation and excitement and her own self, aching and expectant.

 

But in the moment, it's very real, so real in fact that she feels like she's eating it, she can taste it all in her mouth. Every point at which her body touches his body. It's not as if she forgot what he felt like but----

 

she forgot what he felt like, didn't she?

 

It's such a bonkers idea that she almost cracks up laughing. 

 

After so many years of hisbodyherbody, so many years of not being apart, not truly. Like twins - secret twins, with something stitched beneath their breastbones twining them together. Rochester and Jane, their cord of communion. And the blood-letting should that cord snap. She can remember once sipping a flimsy cup of coffee in the rain, almost comatose with exhaustion. She had been wearing wool, and it itched and smelled like wet dog. Someone was smoking nearby, and her head raged - she wasn’t sure if it was from craving a cigarette, or from the ashes drifting in the wind. Between her legs she hurt from how many times they'd fucked the night before, and it was such a good hurt that it made her wet all over again. 

 

(That is still one of her most consistent memories of _Outlander_. How ready she'd been, all the bloody time, one look from him and he'd have her riding his face within the hour, wherever, whenever, with the smell of rain in the air and the smell of her on his breath the rest of the day). 

 

She had looked up, coffee burning her mouth, someone - probably Maril - nattering in her ear, and saw Sam, getting his make-up re-touched. There was a fake wound on his cheek, and real ones on his shoulders - she wondered if they stung, the scratches she had made on his back. He laughed at something Tracy said, and he reached to his side. His fingers tested the air. They were questing, and her chest knotted up as she realized he thought she was somewhere nearby.

 

Or no. 

 

It was more than that.

 

He _expected_  her to be there.

 

He looked around, and saw her and when their eyes met, something unfurled inside Caitriona. 

 

The same blossom grows now, in this forgotten pub, in the middle of her city, and her t-shirt is no match for his hands. She can feel every tip of every finger, every time his palms flex as if he is restraining himself. He holds her carefully, delicately, like she might break. After the audition, he'd touched her and gathered her close, but tentatively. She remembers the smell of his sweat and how hot the room was, the cameras and lights like heads turning at a party, staring at them, plumbing their faces for every expression, every startled word and hitched breath. His eyes changed from midnight dark to electric blue in an instant, and she was nonplussed, tucked into the crook of his arm, his laughter rumbling through them both.

 

He's staring beyond her as they dance, as Ray speaks to them as he has so many times before. Caitriona wants to chance a look upward, but she's afraid. The memories are like rivers, and she's caught. When he pulled her arm at EIFF, and she tried to yank herself away, smiling politely. The way he breathed in harshly, shaking his head. What he said against her ear, his Scots burr like butter over a hot plate.  _I'd give anythin' to fuck you right now._

 

Sam clears his throat. His chin is very lightly pressed against her forehead. A ghost touch. One of his hands brushes the ripples of her hair and he flinches.

 

"All right?"

 

"Fine, sorry," he mutters, and twirls her out, and then in again. Their bodies come flush together, and finally, they both look. Her belly is a hot blank, and his _mouth_. It's right there. He's licked his bottom lip again, and bitten it too, and it's slicked with him and just a little chapped, as if he's been walking in the cold.

 

She wonders how those marks would feel against her breasts. Her eyes implore and his flash a warning. 

 

“No Cait--"

 

"I didn't--"

 

"I know how ye look at me," he says, and his voice is rough. "I know exactly what ye want right now."

 

"And?"

 

His mouth twists. "We're not kids anymore, Caitriona. We have to grow up sometime."

 

"Who says?"

 

Sam laughs softly. "We should go."

 

She leans up until their lips almost touch. He keeps himself so still that it's like being against a forest on fire. She'll burn if she gets too close. But the heat is too much to resist. She's reckless, a bit drunk, and it's painful how much she wants him, like an illness. 

 

"Why did you ask me to dance if not for this?"

 

"That's a fine question," he says, his accent so thick as to make his voice unrecognizable. 

 

(And yet, it’s how she recognizes it best, and how she hears it in her dreams, during her waking nights, alone and burning in her bed). 

 

She breathes on his mouth, licking her bottom lip carefully, like he had done to his own. She all but feels him swallow, all but feels his body ignite. His hands tighten on her and then his palm catches her collarbone and he pushes her away - gently, but still, away. 

 

"No, we're not-- I can't do this again."

 

She stares after him as he pushes through the crowd, through people swaying, dancing, tottering on their heels. She thinks again of Claire, and about all the different people she's been, he's been, all of the times and ways they've let their bodies into each other's orbits, all the times he’s sunk into her, and she into him. 

 

And she follows him.

 

Outside, it's full dark, and yet London is silver with stars and a little smog, heavy with late commuters and society girls and tourists, stumbling back to their hotels unaware of the sleeping beast around them. She thanks Lucie silently for her flats, and races after the tall figure she’d know anywhere, punching his shoulder lightly.

 

"Oi, drama queen, where you off too?"

 

He looks at her and shrugs. "I haven't the faintest clue but shouldn't you be going home? How's your daughter, Caitriona?"

 

_Oh._

 

Well then. 

 

~~

 

_Sam._

 

He watches her face change with those words, and he feels like an arsehole for saying it first but. Was he supposed to pretend forever? Especially with her giving him those fuck-me eyes and wearing a preposterously thin t-shirt that he can basically see through but he’s not looking, is he?

 

Christ, not again. 

 

She couldn’t have got her hooks into him _again_.

 

As wine-blurred as he is, he knows the word ‘again’ is a fucking joke, because there's no end to it, he’s been ruined since he met her and will be until they are both grey and bleary, rushing toward sleep. 

 

Caitriona hesitates, and they begin walking, side-by-side, not touching. He can’t look at her, can’t see the way her hair falls around her flushed face, the pink of her mouth and the devil of her eyes. He’s furious with himself. For not listening earlier ( _It’s my night. I get what I want_.) For falling so easily into old patterns, like a teenager. He remembers drinking whisky and staring at photos of her, after, when he was maudlin and just— fucking _lonely_. Listening to a Damien Rice record she’d left at his place. 

 

_if you hate me, then hate me so good that you can let me out, let me out, let me out._

 

And he couldn’t. He couldn’t let her out any more than he could escape himself.

 

When she speaks, her voice is quiet. But it still shatters the night in two, and they both flinch. “She’s very well, thank you.”

 

He swallows that. Has to. And his next words - god, he has to say them too. “At her Dad’s?”

 

 “No. She’s with her grandmother. I have— I have a place in Tuscany. Outside Barga. It’s— peaceful. I moved them there after I split with— well, it just seemed like a nice idea. Mum’s a trooper but the hot air is good for her lungs, and the town is like a pinprick on the map. Marguerite spoke Italian before English, which I’m not sure is a bad thing. She loves all the cobblestones and birds and—“

 

“Wine?”

 

Caitriona laughs. He watches her laugh. “She’s a bit young yet.”

 

Something hurts his throat and he realizes it’s from the way her eyes shift and soften while talking about her daughter. He’d known she had a baby of course - even she couldn’t hide something like that — but he hadn’t heard any more since the birth. Once last year, he’d been reading an article about _Jeanne D’Arc_ in _People_  and they described her as “fiercely private", and he thought that they didn’t know the half of it. 

 

Schleppy, messy, gorgeous Caitriona, hiding in plain sight.

 

“It must be tough— ye know, being away from her.”

 

“It is,” she says, looking away. “It’s— it’s never easy. But at the same time, I lived for so long without a child… I still— I still like my time alone. It was such an alien experience. Someone being so… so very _dependent_  on me. Always touching me and wanting pieces of me.” Her voice is wry. “My tits have never been the same.”

 

He can’t help but laugh, and she does too, bumping her shoulder against his. It’s so familiar that he feels tears in the back of his throat. They’ve been there since he saw her, silver and resplendent in Leicester Square. But they are insistent now, begging him to find somewhere quiet to grieve. 

 

“I’m sure that makes me an evil Mum, not minding the occasional trip away.”

 

Sam considers her words. “It’s funny but I dinna think anyone would judge a Dad for saying the same. I actually think most mothers would give their eyeteeth for some peace.”

 

“True dat,” she says, raising one eyebrow. 

 

He’s surprised by his own laughter. “Ye can’t pull that off, we’ve discussed it.”

 

“I thought maybe after a few years…”

 

“If anything, it’s worse.”

 

She pinches his side. “You’re such a shite, and no time will change _that_.”

 

He chuckles. "True DAT."

 

"Oh you think you're better?"

 

"Better than you that's for damn sure."

 

She nudges him again. "This feels very--"

 

"I know, but let's not."

 

He ignores her eyes on him, ignores the way he can feel them, because what good would it do? He wasn't kidding earlier. They’ve grown up, left so much behind. This isn’t _Outlander_. They aren’t going to report to the set in the morning, giggle like children with every take. He isn’t going to brush her hair back from her eyes. He isn’t going to kiss her in secret, leave her love notes in the make-up trailer, scratch behind Eddie’s ears. All of that, all of them, all that they were, is dust.

 

Sam stares up at the sky. London minds its own business, as cities have done for millennia. It's getting darker by the second, and the moon is no match for the harsh gleam of the streetlights, the reflection on her skin. He thinks of Neruda, of seeing the world mirrored back at him, alive in her.

 

"Sorry, I'm being a shit--"

 

"No, it's my fault," she breaks in. "I'm pushing. I don't-- I suppose it just felt a bit like we were supposed to talk? Get things out, I mean. We never really did."

 

“It feels a bit late for that."

 

"It was a mistake, you know."

 

He suddenly wants very much to be away from her, away from this conversation and this night, away from what she's telling him. But he can't help himself. Never could. 

 

"No it wasn't."

 

She speaks very quietly. "Yes, it was. I didn't mean to get pregnant. I don't regret Marguerite for one moment, but she wasn't planned. I didn't even think I'd marry him. I didn't think anything. I was a fool and I've been paying for it ever since--"

 

" _Don't_ , Caitriona."

 

"Why not?" she looks at him and his heart, his stupid fucking heart, it shudders at the sight of her eyes, glimmering with unshed tears. She's holding them back - just - and they are like night fall, stars beneath the surface of lakes. If lakes were all that existed in the world, if lakes were the only precious things he had left.

 

"When should I say it? Sometimes I write letters to you. There's a whole stack of them in Tuscany. Telling you how sorry I am. How much I wish I could go back and admit I was frightened."

 

"Of what?"

 

"Of you. Of us. The whole bloody thing."

 

"That's--"

 

She holds up her hand. "Don't tell me it's stupid. We had broken up. I was -- he was normal for christ's sake, he was just a very, very good mate and a very good person. And I  _destroyed_  that. I couldn't be happy with him. Not knowing _you_  were --"

 

Sam can't take it. He's throbbing, all over, and he spins, yanking her close, making her look at him. They are up against a stone wall, on a quiet street. The trees make hushing noises around them. There's a private garden nearby, like in  _Notting Hill_  and someone playing the piano, soft and hesitant. He watches her chin tremble and he's lost. He knew he was. He's always known it.

 

"Do ye think I've not suffered these past three years?" he asks roughly. "Every time I've turned a corner or walked into a shop or saw a text come up on my phone, I've thought - maybe it's her. I've  _seen_  you. Like a ghost. Everywhere and nowhere. I ken you think I'm heartless but _Christ_ , Caitriona--" and he lifts her palm, pressing it to the front of his shirt, “don't ye feel that?"

 

Her fingers clutch his t-shirt. She's open-mouthed, wordless, staring into his eyes. He stares into hers, watching the tears hover and fall. He groans, dipping his head, kissing her damp skin, tasting the salt, tasting her. And she's trembling, her hands moving, grasping the curls at his nape. He feels her fingers there, and every nerve ending catches fire.

 

“Sam. Take me back to my hotel,” she whispers, and he nods, wordlessly, hopelessly, for he’s never been able to do anything else but what she asks. 


	6. Chapter 6

_Caitriona._

 

They manage not to touch until the elevator doors slide shut. She feels his eyes on her, feels his restraint vibrating across the small, hushed space. He keeps flexing his hands and there is tension in every line of his body. Everything is branching in her like electricity, and when he takes a step, then another, backing her up against the hand rail, she thinks she should look up. But she can't, she  _can't._  It's been too long, and she's so tender and her body aches, aches, aches. She's missed him so much, she's loved him so much, she's longed for him so much. How can it be that he's about to put his hands on her? How can it be that he's going to kiss her mouth?

 

Sam's fingers touch her chin. He exerts pressure gently, lifting her face so that their eyes meet, lock. 

 

"Cait..."

 

It's a small thing, but she feels salt in the back of her mouth, ever present, ever waiting. God, his nickname for her. When he sees the tears in her eyes, he makes a hoarse sound in his throat, and dips his head again, kissing her eyelashes, her lids, just beneath. 

 

"Ye have to stop doing that," he whisper groans against her skin. "I can't take it."

 

"My room key," she murmurs, feeling at her side for her purse.

 

"Fuck your room key," he says roughly, and then he's kissing her, his teeth scraping her bottom lip, his hands in her hair, on her back, the railing hurting her ass as she's shoved against it by his body. 

 

Caitriona moans into his mouth, openly and unashamedly, unable to stop herself. He flinches as he hears it and suddenly his fingers are fumbling with the button of her jeans, desperately, urgently, and then he has his hand, palm down, over her pussy. She's wet and warm, and they both make a sound as his thumb makes contact with her clit. It's like lightning. His hand is so big that it covers her completely, and she shudders, wriggling, trying to force him deeper into her jeans. 

 

"Christ, we should--" he breaks off to kiss her again. But only briefly, and they look behind to see that the doors are open on the penthouse floor, the little hall stretching out, waiting for them.

 

Sam turns her around so that her ass is snug against him, and he keeps his other hand where it is, tormenting, teasing. She can barely walk, and she feels every tickle of his breath on her neck, every open-mouthed kiss he drops on her nape, behind her ear. The key is old fashioned brass, and it winks in the light, slotting perfectly into the oily lock. When it clicks, he pushes her through the door none too gently, slamming it behind him with his foot.

 

She stays still, waiting, expectant. Like he was, years ago, questing for her hand in the air. The movement, when it arrives, is fluid, easy. He picks her up and into his arms, carrying her down the steps to the sunken living area, and through to the bedroom. They aren't looking at each other, and every second seems to hurt, every second that he isn't inside of her just  _hurts,_ a peculiar pain, the absence of something rather than the presence. 

 

The room is dark and golden, the curtains open, revealing the glittering city beneath them. All the stars in the sky. Sam puts her down and tenderly, almost reverently, removes her clothes. He starts with the t-shirt. It blinds her momentarily as he lifts it off her head. He unclasps her bra, draws down her jeans, her underwear. His hands cup her waist, and he draws them up, tracing her ribs and the undersides of her breasts. She trembles, wondering if she'll be able to bear it. 

 

"You're so thin," he whispers. "What happened?"

 

"I don't know," she says. "You. Everything."

 

"I didn't happen to you."

 

"Yes you did."

 

He tilts his head to the side, staring at her intently. "How do ye figure?"

 

She can't meet his gaze. She shakes her head. "I have so much. And somehow... without you, I just--"

 

"Don't say things like that to me, Caitriona... unless--"

 

"Unless what?"

 

"Unless ye want me to fuck it out of you." His eyes burn and he takes a step closer. He lifts his hand and she sees that he's shaking, ever so slightly. "Is that what you want?"

 

"I want  _you_."

 

"What about me do ye want?" He takes his own clothes off as he says it, slow, slow. Every piece that's revealed is like a revelation to her. Memories that have lay forgotten at the bottom of the pool, memories she's been afraid to dredge up. The smoothness of his belly. His strong arms, the veins beneath his skin. The gold hair on his chest. His cock, the way it sticks straight up, toward his bellybutton, thick and burnt-pink with blood. It moves beneath her stare, and he smirks a bit, shedding his pants on the floor. She thinks her mouth is watering, she thinks she's on fire.

 

"I've always wanted every bit--"

 

"Is that so?"

 

Anger wells in her, bright and hot and familiar, and she snaps. "We decided together--"

 

"And then ye shacked up with someone else not even a month later. So." He stalks toward her and cups her face, kissing her mouth until she's lost again, clinging to him. "Get on the bed. On your knees."

 

Caitriona remembers those words being spoken before, and the hot knot in her stomach hardens to breaking point. She's so wet she thinks she could come just from one touch, and he's watching her the way he used to, predatory and sure. As if her body is his to do what he wants with. And it always was, wasn't it?

 

She does as he says, balancing on her hands, every nerve ending alight. And she feels him behind her, his knee on the bed, his palm running down her back, tangling in her hair. He yanks her head back and she squeaks, another hot rush going through her, all the way from her nipples down between her legs.  _God. She'd forgotten._ His other hand drifts down until it rests over her ass, a ghost touch. His voice is gravelly and thick. 

 

"I should punish you, I think."

 

"For what?" she murmurs, wanting to squirm, but unable to move. 

 

"For being so fucking beautiful I haven't been able to think straight for eight years."

 

"Minus the time with the fringe."

 

He chuckles, low and rough. "Even then. And especially for that - that fucking  _ring_ \--"

 

She does squirm then, and his hand comes down. It feels like a hot stripe across her ass and she moans out loud, dipping her head and arching her back. He drapes himself over her for a moment, letting her feel the weight of his cock, his breath against her ear. 

 

"I'm going to make ye forget anyone else."

 

"You already have," she murmurs, and he tenses.

 

"Don't."

 

And then he smacks her again, and again, and again, until Caitriona is a buzzing, thrumming body and nothing else. Her pussy clenches with every strike of his hand, every time she feels his palm, and his voice in the darkness. Telling her what he's dreamt of them doing. Telling her how she looks, on her knees for him, her ass red from his hand and her pussy wet in the light from outside. They've done this before, (role played once - he brought home a uniform he'd found on set and she had spread herself across his knees willingly, imploring him to spank her, hurt her - but that  _good_  hurt, that fucking amazing hurt) but this is another level, something she's never experienced before in her life. All she is, is  _feeling_ , all she is, is his hand and her body and what connects them, what's between them, the rush of air and the sound, and her pussy is so empty that it seems to throb, like a wound, and she feels desperate, like she might orgasm just from this, but she doesn't want to yet-- not yet -  _please--_

 

"Christ, Cait," he groans, and moves behind her, his palms covering her breasts. She finally feels the calluses, the bits he's worn away at the gym, and they catch on her nipples. His accent has thickened with desire, and he's almost unrecognizable - but not to her. Never to her. "Open your legs for me."

 

She's like jelly, but she manages, and then his hand is on her belly, tightening and holding her. He asks whether it's safe and she nods, not trusting her own voice. Sam laughs softly, even as he spreads her legs further.

 

"You kill me. How long has it been?"

 

"A long time," she says.

 

"So I should be gentle?"

 

"God no."

 

He makes a low sound and leans over her, kissing her mouth. "No?"

 

"No."

 

His initial thrust is a tease. Just the tip of him, opening her up. She moans in frustration, wriggling back on him. She feels him put his hand around his own cock, feeding himself into her, inch by torturous inch, until he's as deep as he can go, his body trembling, his balls against her ass, his palm on her pussy. He rubs over her clit, slowly at first, timing his movements with how he fucks her. When he goes slow, grinding against her until she can hear her own wetness slicking them both, he goes slow with his hand. When he begins to move faster, harder, his fingers form a v-shape over her clit, massaging it from all angles until Caitriona is sure she'll go crazy, come around him, cry out his name.

 

But he seems to know - of course he does - and so he stops just as she's nearing the edge, his angle changing. He pulls at her hair, touches her throat, her lips, makes her suck on his fingers, and all the while, he keeps the rough, slow rhythm of his cock. Keeps his hand on her clit. Until she's swollen, tears in her eyes, the same feeling as before, all body, all feeling. Fucking Sam, Sam fucking her, it's always been an all encompassing experience, but after so many years, it's something else entirely. Something alien and terrifying in its intensity.

 

"Move with me," he says hoarsely, pulling her back so that she's sitting on him, the backs of her thighs resting on the front of his, impaled and shuddering, still on the precipice. "Do ye feel that?"

 

"I can't feel anything else," she says, turning her head to kiss him. 

 

His tongue is hot and his cock is hotter, and they move together. One of his hands pulls at her clit, the other is on her nipple, his fingers worrying it, torturing it, until it stands out in sharp relief, and she feels every tug all the way down, down, down. She knows she's going to come, has been fighting it, but it's too much, she has to come like this, with the pressure of him filling her, fucking up into her, his hand on her clit, stoking the fire, rubbing until she loses what's left of her mind, every bit of her building and building until she ignites, pulsating around him and sobbing into his mouth, her hands covering his, forcing them harder, harder.

 

"God," Sam grinds out, and she wants him there too, she wants him  _wild_  and so she moves even as she keeps coming, she moves down, fucking back onto him - and her body is so sensitive it almost hurts, but she comes again, because  _oh oh oh god_ and he makes a broken sound and everything seems to tighten, impossibly, like he might break, or break  _her_. She wishes she could see his face, wishes she could look into his eyes, but she feels the sting as his forehead falls against her shoulder, feels the sweat on his chest and his belly, feels every part of him reacting to the force of his own orgasm. 

 

When he collapses onto the bed, he does so sideways, cradling her, so that she doesn't bear his weight, and she'd forgotten that too- his gentleness, his  _goodness_ , and that's all she can think as she falls into an exhausted, salt-slicked sleep, she'd forgotten it all, she'd forgotten him.

 

~~

 

_Sam_

 

He had forgotten. It's a thought that drifts around him like a misplaced dream, as he lies with Cait in his arms, London beneath them, the stars flickering light-years away. Although he'd had many nights of loneliness, many nights with just his hand and disjointed fantasies playing like old films, he'd never really contemplated whether he was remembering Caitriona, or remembering the her that lived in his mind.

 

With the warm reality against him, the smell of her filling his mouth, he realizes that he'd forgotten what it was like to be  _with_ her. The simple joy of his life back then - laughing with her over something exceedingly silly. The way she would always know just how to knock him out of a foul mood. His hand on her back before panel discussions or her hand on  _his_ back before autograph signings. The act of caring for someone, of their happiness being more important than your own. It wasn't a complicated thing, not on the face of it, but it astounds Sam even now how difficult it is to find.

 

In the beginning, he'd thought that what they had - as co-stars and actors and friends - that it was  _normal._ Prosaic. Run-of-the-mill. He didn't feel lucky, he felt like he'd stumbled upon something that had existed for millennia and would exist for more. It wasn't until he met others in the industry that he got it.

 

There was nothing normal about the relationship he had with Cait. 

 

It was more than special. It was what the ancients called kismet. He'd once heard her say that the stars aligned, and he felt it all the way in his gut. He thinks that nothing hurts quite as much as that does when it's over.

 

She wriggles sleepily against him. Her hair smells of flowers and the London night, of the club they visited - of spilled wine and dust. He thinks of her villa in Tuscany, of the very fact of her daughter waiting for her there. 

 

She turns a bit, and her eyes are soft. His heart squeezes when he sees that. Those blue, blue devils. She whispers, "didn't you sleep?"

 

"No," he says quietly, and touches the tip of her nose with his finger. "Was too keyed up."

 

"Isn't the whole idea of shagging to take care of that problem?"

 

He raises an eyebrow and smiles at her. "Shagging? Ye sound like a right teenager."

 

She shrugs. "I'm not  _that_ old, Heughan."

 

"Wrong side of forty."

 

"And I look damn good for it."

 

"You're fucking gorgeous," he says and the smile fades from her face. His finger traces down to her mouth. "But then, ye always have been."

 

"It doesn't really mean anything though, does it?"

 

"No." He pauses and regards her, this devil, this wife, this best mate and soul-destroyer. "What's changed, Cait?"

 

"What do you--"

 

"What's changed? Why now?"

 

Her head flops back onto the pillow and he rests his own on his hand. She pulls the covers up over her breasts, staring up at the ceiling. Her teeth snag her lower lip briefly. 

 

"I don't know. Do you?"

 

"I thought-- I mean, I wanted to see you," he says. "I wanted to find out what happened, why, the whole nine yards. I didn't plan on us having dinner or any of it. I've got a life now - a proper one that I really love. It took me so long to get over this, is the thing."

 

"I have a life too," she says. "Quite obviously, I suppose."

 

"Aye, I'd say that's evident."

 

"But I-- well, I half wondered if you'd come tonight."

 

"Did you?"

 

"Yes." She closes her eyes and seems to be wandering somewhere that he can't reach, that he can't see. "I was standing by the window out there, getting dressed--"

 

It gives him a jolt to think of her  _before._ That she didn't just arrive in a bubble. That she had thoughts and itches and silly wishes and shampoo stinging her eyes and food in her mouth. That she'd been  _Caitriona_  before he'd seen her tonight. 

 

"I was standing there," she continues, "and I thought of Peter Pan and Neverland and how when I was a child, I loved the idea of a place where we don't grow up. Where we can keep that sense of wonderment about the world. Marguerite has it. She looks at everything like it's a butterfly - like it's beyond magic. I felt a bit like that on Outlander, and I grew up with a bang when I got pregnant. It wasn't just about me anymore. We'd been on such a bloody roller coaster for so long and I suppose I was sick of it. I was sick of always feeling one step behind."

 

"So you decided to marry him."

 

"I cut my fringe and I rebelled and fine, yes, I accepted that ring - it felt very simple and perfect in the moment," she says. "Do you know what it's like to go from a situation where my stomach felt like it was in ribbons all the time, to a sandy beach on the other side of the world? It felt like the most perfect escape there was. It felt--"

 

"I know how it felt," he says tonelessly. "Do ye know I thought it was someone taking the piss?"

She looks at him, sitting up and resting against the headboard. Her hair spills over her pale shoulders, and he's reminded of filming with her, of the long days and nights in bedrooms, both plain and magnificent. 

 

Finally, "Why?"

 

"Because I didn't think it was possible."

 

"Sam--"

 

"What do you expect?" he asks. "I knew we'd split up, but I also knew that there was no one else for us."

 

Her lower lip trembles, just once. "That doesn't follow."

 

"It doesn't?"

 

"You don't end things with that person."

 

"Cait, you've got some idea in your head about what happened - about  _why._ "

"Yes, I do. I do. I think you thought it was a joke because you figured I'd come crawling back to you whenever you were ready. You wanted to have your fun, not be tied down, not risk the best gig either of us had ever had on something that could have crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. But you didn't count on me finding--"

 

"Love?"

 

"Contentment," she counters fiercely. "You didn't count on me  _liking_ that normalcy. A person who wasn't interested in blonde girls or social media likes or --"

 

Sam feels like he's bitten into something sour. "Oh Christ, that's your measure for a relationship?"

 

"Well I'm sorry, what's yours?" her mouth twists. "How much she can rile up the fans with her Instagram? Little Scottish flag bandannas and --"

 

"That's not fucking fair," he bites off. " _You_  wanted me to make things work with her--"

 

"I wanted you to have a functioning relationship," she says coldly. "She seemed sweet, if a bit manipulative. I was trying to help. I did that bollocks photo so that it seemed legitimate. I tried to be mates with her, for your sake. If we could both move on, then, maybe..." 

 

"Maybe we wouldn't sneak into each other's trailers anymore?"

 

She flushes. "That was just sex."

 

He stares at her for a moment and feels himself shaking. Feels his own anger. He lays his fingers very carefully over her collarbone, where she is winged and tender. His thumb dips into the hollow at the base of her throat. Caitriona shudders at his touch, and her eyes stare into his, helpless. 

 

"Did that feel like 'just sex' to you earlier? Because it felt a bit like dying to me," he says low, and she flinches, shoving him away.

 

"Then what's our excuse?"

 

"For what?"

 

"For making such a mess of everything."

 

"You said it yourself," Sam pushes the covers back and stands. He can feel her gaze on him and a little current goes through his body. It's always been enough. Just knowing that she's there, that she's looking, that she likes what she sees. "We were shit-scared. It was like a new life, everything so different, and I'm not sure what we expected. But we had to move on, Cait. We  _had to_. I guess I just don't know what's changed. Or how it ever will."

 

He's in the process of tugging on his boxer-briefs when her voice stops him cold.

  

"Come to Italy with me." She pauses, and he knows she's searching for words, ones she wants to say, ones she doesn't. They rise like bathyspheres, charging to the surface, disturbing the air. He doesn't turn, he doesn't breathe, he doesn't move. Cait's voice is wobbly, but she sounds surer than she ever has. "I know I'm not a person you might be willing to take a chance on, but I want-- I want to change that."

 

Sam spins around, confused and a bit hot and wanting to kiss her, wanting to do more. But he just stares, his mouth slightly open. 

  

"You're right. We've both grown up, we've moved on. Or at least -- we have as much as we could, and that's no small thing. I'm not saying come to Italy forever. I'm not saying let's get married," she blushes a bit, near her breasts, over her heart. She's imploring him, he realizes. Imploring him to believe her, trust her,  _know_  her as he used to. And the word 'married', it makes his chest knot up, makes him remember, the grief, the mountain-walk, the tears as salt and the wind listening. The Caits and Sams they've both been, will never be again. 

 

"Peter had to return from Neverland, but that doesn't mean there wasn't still magic in his life. I always tell Marguerite that. You can find it in the strangest of places, don't you think?"

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

**Three and a bit months later.**

 

_Caitriona_

 

Under her hands, the mud sings, telling her tales of its existence for millennia, here in this countryside, enduring the stomp of boots, wagon wheels and carriage wheels and car wheels, soot and rain and ash, weeds and insects and fingers. She loves it for that simple reason. Its own survival, so naked and blatant. For it is still here, and she's still able to plant within it, still able to grow things, water them, watch them sprout from the earth like babies, awkward-limbed and anxious to meet the sun. 

 

She's finally built the garden she wanted. Here in the home she's made, high up in the Tuscan hills, where even the dust smells like roses and red grapes and that hint of salt, vegetables, kale or mushrooms. Her garden is on the terrace, with her sun loungers and plunge pool, now surrounded by sugar beets, potatoes, and fledgling tomatoes on wooden sticks. 

 

She's sweating, and when she wipes her forehead, she leaves a streak of soil behind. Salt runs down her breasts, her stomach, lower back. Marguerite is in the village with her mother, getting fresh coffee beans and a roasting chicken from the butcher. Cait wants to make the dish where she weights the bird down with bricks, squeezes lemon over it, sears whole cloves of garlic in butter until they're almost brown, and very delicious. Crusty, hot, torn bread on the side to sop up the sauce, and loads of white wine, the bottles sweating in copper buckets of ice. 

 

One of Marguerite's kittens wanders past, before flopping in the shade. Like a ghost of Eddie in her girlhood, and Cait's heart knots up briefly, bringing the alarming threat of tears. More salt. She's thinking of Sam, remembering really, all of the silly times they hurt each other, or tried to. When she insisted on the interview with Kristin. They'd broken up by then, and she wanted very badly to injure him, wound him publicly, force him to say they weren't together, that it was all so ridiculous and far-fetched and nonsensical. 

 

Sam hadn't wanted to do it, and she remembers being furious later, because it was so plain he didn't want to in the video. It made him come off wrong. Like he was wearing a suit that didn't fit. He paid her back by never congratulating her on the engagement. It was glaring, that silence, like an accusation.

 

She can recall telling him about her new boyfriend. "An old mate, and I guess it just... well, it seems like we're becoming more." Him saying, "is it the one in the Instagram video?" And him telling her about Mackenzie. "She's an actress too. Of a sort." Those photos popping up of him at her family wedding. Cozy, well established, and oh how very convenient that they _happened_  to be posted online. When he flew her to South Africa, after weeks of it just being Sam and Cait, and then suddenly -- bang bang, like a shot. She'd distrusted her from the start, and disliked her besides. Cait may have been a mess back then, but she'd known her own faults, known what she was not and could never be. Vapid, grasping, attention-seeking. Those traits were just not in her vocabulary, and Sam's girlfriend had them in abundance. 

 

Cait remembers watching her snapping selfies, standing just so, wanting the light to hit her hair, wanting there to be a hook for the photo - and more often than not, it was her geographic location, where she  _was_ and of course, Sam being there too. It felt like an exercise in climbing an invisible ladder, and yet - Sam didn't seem to mind. 

 

Not that he'd seem to mind much in those days. 

 

It had been enough to put her off social media, almost for good. She tugs weeds from around her tomatoes, throwing them beside her in dirty clumps. The kitten yawns, and Cait wonders why they lashed out so much back then, like kids, furious and stinging. Had it all started when they split up, or was it the very fact that they'd replaced each other so quickly that made them act out? Such was Hollywood - always someone else around the corner - but there had been a part of her (even when Tony asked her out for the first time) that thought they wouldn't do that. That they'd wait.

 

Old-fashioned, maybe, definitely.

 

But beautiful too, in its own way.

 

Caitriona looks up at the noise of the terrace door opening. She smiles, full and luminous.

 

"Hi stranger."

 

~

 

_Sam_

 

He can't help but watch her for a moment. She's in shorts and a t-shirt, knelt in front of a makeshift vegetable garden. The soles of her feet are dark with dirt, and there's a kitten nearby, rolling in and out of a patch of sunlight, its tummy white and grey. Her home is a surprise - he's not sure exactly what he was expecting, but it wasn't this villa with its cottage-like appearance and art and wind chimes. It's cluttered and cozy, Marguerite's toys everywhere and washing drying on the line.

 

Of course it's well posh - the glittering plunge pool, the swanky bathroom, the linens on his bed - but it's also very much a home and he's relieved, relieved that she's settled somewhere, settled from the nomad-existence she'd been living for so long. That they'd both been living, and he still is, if he's honest. He has a flat of course in London, and another in LA, but nothing like this. Nothing he'd call his base.

 

Nothing he'd long for when away.

 

When he woke, the smell of coffee hung in the air, and of ancient dust and sunlight, and of his own skin - airplane, whisky, the hints of travel, of not being at home. He had stretched, done a few push-ups, sit-ups ("daft things", he could imagine Cait saying), until he felt his abs crunch, his shoulders unlock a bit. He is jet-lagged and dopey, having caught the red-eye from New York. And yet, as he showers, he feels as if he could run a marathon. Feels he could hike out into the mountains that surround them, tell a story, tell the hills and sky that he's here.

 

"Hi stranger," she says as he walks out, and she smiles, lays him bare.

 

It was the same the previous night, when he arrived. He'd rung the bell, and felt like a knob doing it too, and she'd answered in her pajamas, hair in a knot, glasses on. Smiling, smiling so big that his heart cracked and he felt his chest try to contain it. He had stared at her for a moment, at the way she was slightly purplish around her mouth (wine) and her hands were ink-stained (crossword puzzle) and then it all got a bit blurry. She stepped forward and put her hands on his shoulders,

 

"Took you long enough."

 

"Filming." He pointed at himself. "Big star. Huge."

 

"I'm sorry, are you wanking right now or..."

 

He busted up laughing, couldn't help it. And she was giggling too, but it all stopped when he kissed her. He gathered her into his arms and held her there, just exploring her mouth. As he'd wanted to do that entire night in London. As he'd wanted to do countless other times in those blue-black years between their parting and meeting again. He kissed her and tasted the wine she'd been drinking, and he fancied he could taste the ink from her fingers, as if she'd been touching her lips out of frustration. He kissed her and kissed her, until she was gasping and clinging to him, her heart thrumming against his heart, a drumbeat that echoed around them both. 

 

When he took her to bed, he carried her - and only went the wrong way once - she'd forgotten she was supposed to be giving directions. Her bed was big and soft, and they lost themselves in that darkness, the hot depths of it, the wet of their mouths, the feel of it, the togetherness of it all almost hurting, there was no other way to describe it, it _hurt._ He fucking _throbbed_ with wanting her, wanting it all, wanting to fuck her until she forgot her own name, only knew his, and that was its own pain too. The sound of her whimpering, the way she bit her lip when she came, as if it was being forced from her - he remembered, and he remembered, and he would remember until both of them had been returned to the ground.

 

How she took, took and took and took, his Caitriona, his gorgeous, devil-eyed girl.

 

He looks at her now, dirty and schleppy and in her element, and he can't help but grin. "Morning."

 

"Afternoon more like."

 

"Are ye calling me lazy?"

 

"If the shoe fits," she says, getting up and dusting herself off. Her hands leave streaks on her shorts. "You snuck out rather quietly."

 

"Felt like I should," he says. "I mean, I didn't know if Marguerite would--?"

 

"No, it's good- I mean, until I explain things to her. As much as you _can_  explain things to a toddler, I suppose." She pauses and he notices that she seems nervous, and it's charming in its newness. Her hands are trembling. "You hungry?"

 

"Is that a question?"

 

"Come on, you. I'm sure I've got something rustling around."

 

He follows her, looking around discreetly. "Where are--"

 

"In the village," she answers, leading him into the kitchen. It's off the dining area, and huge, done in shades of mint green and cream. The wood is copper-coloured, the same colour as the pots and pans that hang from the ceiling . The room smells of garlic and potatoes and something else he can't quite pinpoint. It's the smell of his sister's house too, of the Darling home in _Peter Pan_ , of every house where a child lives. Spilled milk, vanilla, teething cookies and rubber bands and barbie dolls - sour and sweet and as pungent as electricity. He settles himself at the bar and watches her, watches as she washes her hands with an oily soap that is purple as lavender. She continues, "I sent them for a chicken. I wanted them out of my hair. Marguerite is a terrible pest when I'm gardening."

 

He rests on his elbows, regards her carefully. "I'm chuffed to be meeting her."

 

Caitriona slides a knife into a tomato, turning it into thick, dripping slices. The cutting board is soon covered in little pips. "Are you? She's a handful and a half."

 

"You don't think I'll charm the socks off her?"

 

"She doesn't wear socks."

 

Sam laughs. "That's a mere technicality."

 

"Is it... is it odd that--" she stops and bites her lower lip. He watches her teeth catch the pink flush, watches as she worries the chapped bits he'd created the night before. And he feels his stomach tighten as it always does, feels his whole body go sort of hot and blank. "Is it odd that I worry it will bother you eventually?"

 

"That she doesna wear socks? I'm not _that_ obsessed with footwear, Balfe."

 

She smirks. "Ha bloody ha. I mean that she's not... well, that she's not yours."

 

He's winded, as if someone has shut a door in his face. "Christ... she came from _you._  Do you really think I'm -- it would never even -- she's _yours_. End of."

 

"I just... it's not something I had considered." 

 

"What do ye mean?"

 

"I didn't think I'd ever-- well, until maybe she was older? I didn't think I'd date."

 

"Date."

 

She throws a piece of bread at him. "You know bloody well what I mean."

 

"It's just so quaint, like we're teenagers again. Shall we meet after A-Level prep or..."

 

A dish towel goes flying next, and he dodges it expertly, laughing. "I think it's quite adorable, really. That you want to date me."

 

"I _don't_ want to," she says through gritted teeth. "Since you're such a sod."

 

"Did ye really think you wouldn't? Meet anyone, I mean."

 

She shrugs, arranging the tomato slices on a plate, spooning burrata over them, white as snow. "I was a bit-- tender, I guess, after things ended with him. I realized how much I'd mucked everything up and I didn't want to consider starting again. It felt like I'd have to be _sure_ , y'know? With Marguerite. I couldn't just go for some wine and a gig with someone. I'd have to really think there would be a future."

 

He nods, ignoring the tiny burst of happiness at her words. He full well knows there's a future, of course, but hearing her _say_ it - even unconsciously, well. He's _is_ like a teenager again, blushing and unsure and so fucking _joyful_. It's almost too much, almost on the brink of shattering him. He's sitting in Cait's kitchen, for Christ's sake, about to eat a meal she's made for him, and he gets to watch her move, pick things up, her eyes brightening, the flash of her teeth, the way her hair falls in dark waves. He'd woken up with the taste of her in his mouth. It's too much, but it's the best kind of too much there is. 

 

She shrugs and tears pieces of chargrilled bread over the salads. "Plus, she's a holy terror."

 

"So's her mum."

 

"She does come by it honestly."

 

He laughs. "I notice ye didn't deny it."

 

"What would be the point?"

"Fair. I have a question for you."

 

She looks up and makes a twirling motion in the air. "Go for it."

 

"Did ye end things with me because you had to? I mean, because of Marguerite and the engagement? Or because you really did want to?"

 

It's her turn to stare at him as if she's been slapped. She sets down a bottle of olive oil. It's as golden as the bread, as golden as the sun outside, reflecting off her skin. "You mean back then?"

 

"Aye."

 

"A combination of both, I think."

He swallows and nods. "Okay. That's about what I thought."

 

"It was so many things though. The show and the pregnancy and what I thought I should do. I felt like-- we had lost something. We were just hurting each other so much, weren't we? We still had our laughs and there were some good times -- but I knew it couldn't last. Now how we were. Or perhaps I wanted to shock you, I don't know. God, I hope I wasn't that awful but I probably was. Maybe I thought you'd react in a different way than you did."

 

"Y'mean, not stropping off in a tantrum?"

 

She smiles, a bit wobbly. "Maybe."

 

They take their food outside to the patio. She has a little conversation set near the pool, and it's shaded, warm. She brings a bottle of icy white wine and studs their salads with salt, and little knots of fresh basil. After he takes a bite, he thinks he's probably died. 

"Christ, I'd move here for the food alone."

"Speaking of that--"

 

He raises an eyebrow in her direction.

 

"I need a date for the Oscars."

"Oh, aye?"

 

"Know anyone? Perhaps someone who looks dashing in a suit?"

 

"With an accent to turn your knees to butter?"

 

"I wouldn't go _that_ far."

 

"Ye always have to take the piss."

 

"It's how I show my love."

 

Sam's eyes go to hers, he can't help it. Like a fish on a hook, driven straight through his chest. She's looking back, tear-bright. He reaches out and takes her hand. His thumb rubs over her fingers. Her skin is like velvet, sunwarm and familiar. It is the feeling of years past and years yet to come, of huddling on rain-swept hills, of weeping with laughter and of her palm on his back, and the way she says his name, in the way that only he gets, only he can understand. 

 

And her bare ring finger. How precious and small that is. How tender and enormous.

 

It is the feeling of being known, of knowing.

 

He looks past her, sees Cait's mother and Marguerite coming up the hill, carrying a basket between them. They are still small and far away, their figures seeming to shimmer in the heat.

 

Cait turns and sees them too. She smiles at him wryly, swiping at her eyes, at the salt there. "Ready?"

 

He nods. "As I'll ever be."

 

Standing, he reaches out, brings her with him. He watches the mountains move in the distance, breathing and crackling as they have for millennia. He imagines a different ring on her finger, with a diamond the colour of her eyes. A lake, forever and deep and blue, reflecting back his own love, his own terror, the beast within them both quieted only by the other, 

 

awakened only by the other.

 

Sam nods again, and presses a kiss to her forehead, where she is damp and vulnerable. He whispers against her ear, thinking that the hills and the sky and the birds must be listening.

 

"Let's go down and tell them I'm here."

 

**_The End._ **


End file.
